Musical artistry can encompass so much more than the music itself. Embracing the entire creative process – the countless hours of writing, producing, marketing, traveling – and the fulfillment of sharing the experience live with the world – is when the artistic adventure really comes full circle. For West Coast electronic trio The Glitch Mob, their latest album release Love Death Immortality was the result of their revolutionary journey with their previous album, Drink The Sea, and their desire to express it even further with a new sound, a phenomenal stage production and a whole new way to experience The Glitch Mob.
“This is really everything coming full circle.” – The Glitch Mob
Let’s take a step back and explore the basis behind Love Death Immortality, and the overall vision for this album as an artistic outpouring of The Glitch Mob. The album, which can only be summed up as an explosive smash-down of hybrid electro-glitch, is much more outspoken than Drink The Sea, which seemed more of an inward-focused collection. We were eager to know the purpose behind their dramatic sound transition, and the sole directive behind Love Death Immortality.
[quote style=”1″ author=”The Glitch Mob”]It’s about the story, the message, the vibe. Life and love and everything in between that links us all together. We wanted to merge the emotion we unearthed while writing Drink The Sea with the live stage energy that we come from. Not everyone knows this, but before we wrote Drink The Sea we were writing a lot of dance-floor material. So for us this is really everything coming full circle.[/quote]
The Love Death Immortality album comes as an extraordinary electro shock to most Glitch Mob fans, and electronic music gurus in general. However, it comes as no surprise that some devout Glitch Mob fans feel as if the shift in musical focus is to appease the new EDM masses rather than staying true to their unique sound. Whether this is a genuine concern, or just super-fans unwelcome to the swarming mass of newly-found Glitch Mob lovers, the guys themselves seem to not concern themselves with any career move critique other than their own.
[quote style=”1″ author=”The Glitch Mob”]To be quite honest, we just do us. Love Death Immortality is an extroverted album for us. Drink The Sea was more of a diary piece, a creative exploration. We knew that we wanted to take the core elements of Drink The Sea and translate them to the live stage. You can hear the music and still tell that it’s us – the core emotion, values and message are there. But it’s been taken to the next level, the next step in the progression.[/quote]
“We love the ability to have our hands in everything… But I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone – it’s a lot of work.” – The Glitch Mob
There’s so much more behind the creative process of The Glitch Mob than just writing the music. While most artists hire a team of talents to envision and design their focus, their stage and their marketing scheme, the trio have taken it upon themselves to have total control of every aspect of their careers – even the not-so-fun, business side of things. But by doing so, their collective vision is set in motion precisely how they imagined it would be.
[quote style=”1″ author=”The Glitch Mob”]We love the ability to have our hands in everything. The art, the live show, the social media, the merch, the text – everything is part of the process for us. It’s a great way to extend the creative aspect of the music and allow people other ways into your journey. But I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone – it’s a lot of work. And it’s not all creative work. If you really only want to focus on music and hone your craft, that’s absolutely valid. These days, it can really help give you a leg up though to be able to do everything yourself.[/quote]
Somehow, in the midst of all of this, and running their own label Glass Air Records, the guys find time to focus on their solo careers as edIT, Boreta and Ooah (whom is also one-half of PANTyRAiD along with another solo project, Of Porcelain). The most remarkable thing of all, though, is not how much The Glitch Mob can do for themselves, but how much they are somehow able to give back to the world. The trio have invested more time, care and money into various charities and organizations both locally and world-wide than you ever thought possible after already being stretched so thin. Their efforts take quite a stand for us all to learn from: that of which is most important overall will be made a priority in our lives, telling of just how well-rounded and genuine these gentlemen are. This summer marks a new risk-prevention effort that is undoubtedly going to be adopted by many massives and festivals to come.
[quote style=”1″ author=”The Glitch Mob”]We are really excited about this campaign we are working on right now with Electric Forest. It’s all based around people becoming festival ‘ninjas’. What this means is education around all sorts of stuff – hearing loss, heat stroke, CPR, drug safety, etc. It’s not our job to sit here and tell people not to do drugs, because they’ll do it no matter what. But we feel that it is our responsibility to use our platform to educate people and hopefully save some lives in the process. There have been a ton of deaths recently that are very preventable. Beyond that, we have an ongoing relationship with Charity Water. Justin (Boreta) went out to Ethiopia with them last year and had his mind blown in the process. Our goal is to build a Glitch Mob well in Ethiopia where he visited.[/quote]
“The trip changed me forever.” – Justin (Boreta), The Glitch Mob
Now in the middle of their expansive world tour, including stops at Coachella, Electric Forest and right here in Seattle for a 2-day stint, The Glitch Mob guys are embracing the rewarding feeling of their incredible work finally paying off. Their rock-meets-electronic stage design was the final piece they guys had envisioned for the full listener experience, which they made into reality with the help of some of the world’s greatest in the game.
[quote style=”1″ author=”The Glitch Mob”]The live performance for us is as important as the music. It’s another part of the epic story – the culmination of everything. After all, this is why we wrote the music. The blade was developed as a collaboration between us, Bionic League (who did the Daft Punk pyramid, deadmau5, and Nine Inch Nails) and namethemachine’s Matt Davis. The goal is to bring our performance out and closer to the crowd so people can see what we’re doing. To merge the drama of a live rock show with the sound, feeling and heavy bass of electronic music. The crowd reaction has been phenomenal. It’s the best feeling in the world to be back out on the road, playing this music, sharing the baby with the world.[/quote]
We’re grateful to do what we do.” – The Glitch Mob
There’s no telling what is next for The Glitch Mob after this rotation around the artistic scope sets back to the beginning. With hundreds of thousands of new inspirations to pull from this time around, we can be certain that The Glitch Mob will be back to deliver another profound, full-circle experience.
Want to win the ultimate experience? Test your luck below! Enter to win 2 tickets to The Glitch Mob’s sold-out Seattle show on May 4th, as well as a prize merch pack from Respect My Region!
The guys do know that sometimes, it’s good to take a break to laugh and have fun. Plans for their upcoming Northwest shows? “We are going to spray artisan iced coffee out of cannons at the end of the show.”
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